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Sailing ship from WMC to Port Mirandia

GM: Geokhan
PC’s: Cober / Silva / Valorean / Oogway / Ogis / Tramenor / Caslech

We began our adventure back in White Moon Cove (WMC), a place I haven’t started an adventure in a good long while. We decided to take the boat we found from the Blood cultist little hide-away fort far north from WMC off to Port Mirandia. A nice enough vessel, but then again I am no sailor to make such judgments…

We set sail north along the coast and just as our first night begins to go without trouble, we spot some strange orange lights out near Neathy Woods. A peculiar sight that almost made a few of us wanting to anchor the vessel and take a peek, but we pressed on through the night. With nothing much else of excitement or interesting throughout the night we begin to circle just around the north end of the island and that’s when the excitement began for us.

Storm Giant
Its a man, who is Gigantic and was not happy we sailed near his waters.

A behemoth of a man is seeing far off in the distance; like a pillar set in the water. Eventually he makes his way towards our vessel, but he is far out of range of our ballista’s and especially any of our spells. We navigate the boat to keep on sailing away from this tower of a man thinking we are far enough of away from any danger, but we were all wrong. The sky begins to crackle and with a flash of white the deck of the ship is struck by terrible lighting that leaves a few of the crew smoldering piles of ashes and a few from the group aching in pain.

I am left amazed at how this Giant could strike us from such a vast distance, Ildan the captain of our voyage begins to steer the boat with utter haste to flee from this giant. We make some good strides and our members tend to what they can as this towering humanoid is so far for us to attack. Ildan takes a stance at the side of the ship to get a better look at the man and suddenly in a blur the giant vanishes and appears right next to the vessel. It seems he is not willing to let us flee, as he strikes down with his mighty weapon towards Ildan who is able to withstand such a strike the giant seems to brake the fasten on a piece of his armor by forcing such might behind his attack. Now that he is within far closer range than any of us would have hoped, I coordinate with the crew to man and aim the ballista’s.

“Alright crew, this is far to close for comfort…take Aim and loose the ballista right into this giant!”

The crew fire off two shots at the giant and they but barely pierce through his thick armor yet one manages to pierce through to the skin from where his armor was removed. In all this chaotic, frantic pace of a combat the one who walked to the giant and but uttered a simple phrase with a arcane cadence to it the wizard Cober suggests to the Giant, “Retreat and keep your life.” We stood their waiting for the Giant’s next move, awaiting another blow to strike our hull or perhaps lay waste to any one of us; yet the giant lowers his swinging arm and begins to walk away from our ship.

As we are all about to catch our breathe the giant speaks one phrase in Giant speech, “Death awaits us at the Pyramid of Nur’Kalaa.” This is what the friendly firbolg Tramenor translated for us as we sailed away and eventually assess the damage to the hull of the ship. We are not certain of this Nur’Kalaa place but it may be near where this Giant is placed; an area we wont be visiting anytime soon I perceive.

As we continue our voyage through the sea end up with some Crabs and rats attempting to board our vessel, not much a threat but if they swarm the deck it would pose a hindrance to our travel.

The friendly firbolg Tramenor, speaks to a few of these crabs and scoots them off our ship back into the sea. However I am a man who believes in the circle of life and in that circle is death. We dispose of the remaining crabs with ease and feast on some delicious crab meat and rat skewers for the evening.

On our third evening sailing through the sea we noticed a small island, what seems about a mile in size. We had Cober sent out his Owl, Anhinga out to scout the island but nothing seemed of interest for us to stop our current course. Just as we are about to set back onto our journey we manage to get the boat lodged on a sandbank. With some maneuvers and having the crew mostly dig and tug we get the boat back in the sea.

We continue to make great strides in our travels and through the fourth night a mist that is usually seen in the Shadowfel; a dark home of dead souls is seen ahead of us. We decide to sail through it to save us time and as we break through the crew is left shaken from the ordeal and can see their morale is quite low, we used that night to inspire them with some food to lift their spirits. Further through the night Valorean wakes us that we are being attacked and as I peer over the edge I see ghostly apparitions heading in our direction. After a swift battle, we find two dead crew members below deck and continue to press on our trip but Ogis mentions to me in the morning of a Kraken’s burial site out in sea near our travels. I tell Ogis that a burial site of that nature leaves a strong presence that can tend to warp its vicinity and causes a fierce disturbance of creature’s similar in strength to linger or hunt for prey.

“Best to leave such a site alone, lest we disturb something far greater than a Kraken”

Nearly towards the end voyage we see an island but a day’s travel north-by-northwest of Port Mirandia. We turn to make birth at the island and as we approach we a ship wrecked nearby and humanoid figures on the coast waving at us frantically. We disembark on two row boats to meet these folks, what we presume are survivors from the crashed ship; whether they are friendly or not we wouldn’t know till we sail up to them.

A group of nearly fifty survivors stranded on the island that had their shipped crashed on some sandbanks and as they settled on the island a few of their crew were kidnapped and slaughtered by some creature in thick fog and shadows. Well the group decided to rescue these stranded folks from the island but first we should cleanse this island of what ever threat is killing this crew before leaving.

We set out with the survivor who told of us the creature, he leads us to this waterfall area with a cave and what appears to be some sort of ruined temple in the thick of the jungle. As we approach we see a torch lit on a ledge and its suddenly snuffed out; no wind or other force that we sensed at this moment. We slowly begin our descent down the ledge and head towards the ruins and thats when we hear a shrill of a voice call out to us.

A face only a mother could love but she cares not for it and just wanted our blood

The voice cries out, “Interlopers! You dare come and desecrate our temple!” as three bolts of force fly towards Ildan the top of the temple. As our group goes to approach and strike at this Hag of a woman, a second comes around from the far end of the temple and fires out at us. We begin to move closer and then suddenly a third Hag exits from the cave to the north of us and tries to strike us down but Oogway runs up and deftly strikes at this one with a flurry of blows that I could barely follow. I send out two blasts of Eldritch force and move closer but Valorean send some mighty strikes and kills this hag. We soon climb and make our way to the one who originally fired at us while the remaining group go towards the front of the temple at the ground floor chasing after the second Hag.

What I find out later on; is that their was an altar inside the temple and piercing into the minds of anyone who got near shouting at them in Abyssal. It seems these Hags were opening a gateway to conjure or communicate with some unholy creature that was using it to assault our minds. I was able to resist its attempt but it still left some damage, mostly due in part that its vernacular was just awful.

As we struck these Hags down, and searched for any wealth within; Ogis smashed the altar and we moved back to the survivors back at the coast. We inform them of the revenge we took for their fallen crew members and began to take them back to Port Mirandia on our ship. We were greeted by a group of Port Mirandia townsfolk having a party near the shore; a sight for sore eyes for these survivors I am sure after spending some time marooned on the island.

The vessel we took from WMC back to Port Mirandia, needs a name. I wonder what the group would choose but I’d like to suggest, “Unkindness.” Its what one would call a flock of Raven’s flying together, fitting as the ballista also are going to be quite unkind to any more giants we meet at sea.